Friday, 9 April 2010

How early can you be taught to program? A thought that has struck me since my wife gave birth to our first born son a month ago. There is no denying that the thought processes that have to be learnt in order to program are invaluable and transferrable abilities. Skills such as logical thinking, reasoning, planning, modularity, that are applicable in all forms of jobs not just ones involving programming.

Having only learnt to program three years ago, I wish I had had more of a chance to program in my early years. So if ever my son is interested in programming I might start him off with a kids programming language called scratch that I heard about in a magazine.

Scratch is a pictorial drag and drop language that feels a bit like lego in style. Different types of variables are different shapes and only fit in the right shaped holes. It's not a very powerful language, but a good educational tool for the youngsters as it is easy to use, understand, and they can create a lot of fun interactive programs very easily.

I’m all for encouraging young ones to learn useful skills, and who knows, these new prodigy scratchers may well be updating and maintaining the NAG library in years to come.

1 comment:

Teaching children programming in a fun way is a great idea. My uncle works as a programmer. He has been telling me and my cousins about his work since I remember and started teaching us programming when I was 10. We all ended up loving it, so I believe that, as long as you are not forcing your children to it, that's the way to go.

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